Birth of My Big Boy

I have never done anything so challenging and rewarding in my life. Monday September 8th I went in to have my tiny baby boy. I was calm and excited all at the same time. We checked in at 10am and I was hooked up to pitocin and had my water broken and was in labor by 11. I had a feeling it wouldn't be less than 12 hours before I was holding my baby...but I didn't expect to be in labor for 23 hours. Contractions aren't fun. I didn't even pretend to be a hero and I decided I was going to get my epidural. Best idea I've ever had. :) god bless all the women who never had the option in the past. I'm short so as the needle was going into my spine you could hear grinding between my vertabrae. Mike wasn't loving it. I, myself, find it quite interesting. Haha 

After being tossed and turned with a bean shaped ball in between my legs all night long and still not dilating past a 5, the nurse started to talk about needing a c-section since it had been 18 hours since my water had been broken. 

It was a long night all around.

Finally around 6 AM the doctor came in and I had all of the sudden dilated to an 8. The little man is just a procrastinator it seems. :) then before we knew it, I was ready to go. they wanted me to wait until his head had dropped more to actually push and even with the epidural I thought I was going to lose my mind from All the pressure. I kept telling the nurse I was pretty sure my epidural wasn't working because I could feel pressure and pain. The dr said since I had it so long it could have lost effectiveness. But I'm pretty sure it was helping to some extent because I could breath normal and didn't kill anyone with a scalpel. :) 

I started pushing around 9:30 and he was finally born at 10:55. 

He came out at 9 pounds and 9 ounces. 21 inches long. Yes. I pushed out a boarder line 10 pound baby. 

We were in shock seeing how large he was. But I was still instantly in love and minorly in shock I did that. I felt very accomplished. Sadly, the hardest part of the day wasn't over. 

As soon as they set him on my chest, they took him away because he wasn't breathing right. It was rapid and labored and he wasn't crying. Little did they know, he just doesn't really cry. ;) 

I felt helpless. The doctor was stitching up my episiotomy and mike was over with the baby and nurses and I didn't know what to do. So I sat there and tried not to cry. I kept asking if he was okay and they assured me he was. But they weren't giving him back. I felt at peace as I prayed but I felt anxious all at the same time. They brought in nicu nurses and then said they needed to monitor him in the nursery and run some tests. I sent mike after him and sat there exhausted and helpless. I let our family know and then waited for my nurse. She kept assuring me he'd be okay but I was too focused on the fact that he was there and not with me. Mike kept texting me updates and sweet little pictures. I kept telling him I needed to do skin on skin to regulate his breathing and I needed my baby. Obviously there wasn't much he could do. My nurse came in and said I could go see him and I asked if I could do skin on skin. She said that would probably be good, she cleaned me up and wheeled me down to the nursery. 

I immediately started to strip before they closed the curtain and they put him on my chest. His breathing tests hadn't been great up to that point but as the nurse checked him while on my chest, his breathing was perfect. Mama knows best. :) skin on skin was key. Ever since we did that initial skin on skin, all of his tests came back perfect. :) 

The nurse said we could try and breast feed while in there but in the wheelchair was way too difficult so we decided to go to our room. As we were wheeling over, I started feeling this insane pressure in my lady bits. Never having given birth, I didn't think it was anything more than pain of pushing out my 9 pounder. 

The nurse and mike went to support me standing up to get me in my recovery bed and I felt blood gush from the land down under. I told the nurse I felt blood come out and she said it was okay... Until the blood hit the floor. She basically threw me on the bed, flattened it all the way down and told me not to move. I didn't want to lay down being covered in blood because I was half in shock and half worried about making a mess. But she snapped me to it and laid me down. Within a few seconds there were 8 or 10 nurses in the room bustling around. Before I knew it, I was hooked to 2 different medicines via IV, had a new IV start, a catheter, 8 suppositories, and was literally laying in my own puddle of blood. All the while my baby peacefully slept and my husband was in shock in the corner wondering when the drama would end. Poor thing. 

They got me, and everything else, cleaned up and stable. Apparently my uterus had hemorrhaged. My 24 hour monitoring all of the sudden turned into a 4 day hospital stay. My hematocrit levels started low but losing all the blood dropped them even lower so Wednesday morning I had 2 units of blood transfused  into me and I started to recover. Luckily I was doing well enough to get to keep my little buddy in the room with me the whole time. 

I've never felt so rough and happy at the same time. :) 

Thursday afternoon, we got to go home. It was so relieving and scary all in one. But, I couldn't wait to get home and just settle in with my little love. 

Going home! 

Being home has been an adventure. Remington is better than I ever could have expected and we truly feel so overjoyed and blessed to be at this stage in life. Mike has been purely amazing with both of us. He's been peed on during diaper changes and cried on for no reason other than hormones and all the while he is cleaning, cooking, working, feeding and burping. I couldn't have designed a better husband. I'm so in love with both of my boys, ❤️

He's smitten.

I'm smitten.